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Welcome to the SM&LC.
Welcome to the Scottish Mineral and Lapidary Club
The Scottish mineral and lapidary club aims to encourage an interest in natural minerals and the craftsmanship in relation to them on a non-commercial basis.
The club offers excellent workshop facilities for cutting and polishing stones, faceting and silverwork all in its new premises in Maritime lane, Leith.
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Click here for Calendar of all Events
Field Trips & Excursions
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Courses in Lapidary Work
SMLC is now running courses in Lapidary Work. Each course also includes 3 months membership to the club and all its facilities.
Click here for more information
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Richard Gillanders will lead some mineral appreciation evenings this winter on Thursday evenings.
details to be announced later.
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The present membership (approximately 100 persons) ranges in ages from 10 to 95 years, with varying social, ethnic and work backgrounds. You could say 'from all walks of life'.
All the members have over the years gained a wide and varied level of skill and knowledge in Lapidary, Faceting, Mineralogy, Geology and Silverwork.
Opening times:
- Monday - 1900 - 2130
- Tuesday - 1100-1500 & 1900-2130
- Wednesday -1100-1500 & 1900-2130
- Thursday - 1100-1500
- Friday - 1900-2130
The next intake / instruction period is set for 12th, 14th & 15th April 2012.
Outings
The club organises several field trips each year to enable members to find their own agates and minerals to work on at the club.
What can you learn?
All new members are given a course of instruction in the art of lapidary and the safe and proper use of the equipment on joining the club.
Open Monday to Friday evenings and three afternoons weekly.
In the beginning
During the 19th Century Edinburgh was a thriving centre of the lapidary and jewellery trades, turning out high quality 'pebble jewellery' from a ready supply of 'Scotch pebbles' or agates and Cairngorm stones.
The last of these professional lapidarists, Alexander Begbie, passed on the know-how of the craft to Ron Bennet, who shortly after in 1958 founded the club.
The First Lapidary Club in the UK still, after some 50 years, continues to carry on the Edinburgh lapidary tradition.
